People ask me for the secret and are disappointed by the answer, because it is not a secret and it is not quick.
He joined as a junior officer with a diploma and a habit that I did not notice for the first two years: he finished things. Not brilliantly. Completely. Whatever landed on his desk left it in a state somebody else could use.
The pattern
In year four he asked to sit in on meetings he had no business attending, and said nothing in them for months. Then he began asking one question per meeting — usually the question about implementation that nobody else wanted to raise.
In year seven he finished the degree he had been putting off, at night, badly timed with a young family. He has described that period to me as the worst two years of his life and the reason for everything after it.
In year eleven he was given a department nobody wanted because it was failing. He took it.
Why it looks ordinary
Because it is. Finish things. Get near the decisions. Close the gap in your qualifications before someone else names it. Take the difficult assignment when it is offered, because it is offered far less often than people imagine.
Twenty-seven years is a long time to describe in six paragraphs. It was a long time to live, too.
